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Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum yesterday suggested that Phoenix cops “manhandled” and mistreated her daughter-in-law before she mysteriously died in custody after an airport meltdown – and The Post has learned the troubled woman twice attempted suicide in the past year amid booze abuse.

“We are not jumping to any conclusions, but the circumstances surrounding Carol’s death appear to be unusual enough to raise serious question and warrant a thorough investigation,” said Gotbaum, whose stepson was Carol’s husband.

“Carol, who was only 5-foot-7 and 105 pounds, appears to have been manhandled by the Phoenix Police Department. She cried out for help at the airport, but her pleas appear to have been met by mistreatment.”

Carol Anne Gotbaum, 45, died Friday afternoon after being arrested for disorderly conduct by cops at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where the New York woman went berserk after missing a flight to Tucson.

Cops say she apparently strangled herself while twisting her handcuffed arms from around her back to her front while alone in an airport holding cell without a surveillance camera for up to 10 minutes.

A police spokesman yesterday said the chain connecting Carol’s handcuffs had been attached to another handcuff that was on the end of a 24-inch-long shackle. The handcuff on the other end of that shackle was attached to a hook on a bench where she was placed.

“We still do not know how Ms. Gotbaum was able to manipulate the handcuffs to the position she was in,” Sgt. Andy Hill said. “But when she was found, her handcuffs were in front, and the shackle was still attached to her handcuffs. The chain was not wrapped around her neck. It was pulled across the front of her neck area.”

Michael Manning, the high-powered lawyer hired by Gotbaum’s family, scoffed at the police account. “Are you kidding me? he asked. You really think it happened this way?

“This is both shocking and disturbing . . . You don’t do this with a woman as slight of build as her and who was emotionally distraught,” Manning said. “You don’t put someone in a choke hold, you don’t handcuff them, you don’t shackle her to a bench, and you sure don’t leave them alone.

“It doesn’t make sense that she could have physically managed to strangle herself.” The Phoenix medical examiner yesterday postponed an autopsy until this morning “because the family had requested time to have a representative there,” an official said.

A mother of three, Carol Anne Gotbaum was on her way to an alcohol-rehabilitation program in Tucson, according to Manning, who said a family friend was supposed to meet her in Phoenix. But the friend was not there, a source said.

Sources said Carol’s marriage to Noah Gotbaum, whose father is renowned labor leader Victor Gotbaum, had long been rocky and the South African native has been emotionally “volatile” for years.

Carol’s father recently died.

On Nov. 1, 2006, authorities said, NYPD officers were called to Carol and Noah Gotbaum’s Upper West Side town house to assist a 44-year-old woman who had attempted suicide by taking pills.

Then, in the past three or four weeks, Carol tried to kill herself in an unknown manner and was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, sources said.

On Friday afternoon, Carol began screaming, “I am not a terrorist,” at an attendant in the Phoenix airport after missing her flight, said Omar Guerrero, 22, a worker who saw her.

Carol dropped her bags, began stomping her feet and said, “I’m not a terrorist. I’m just sick. I need help. I’m just a mother. I’m just a sick mother,” he recalled.

When a security guard tried to calm her, Carol ran to a nearby checkpoint with her hands up and began speaking in a foreign language to three cops who surrounded her.

“She may have looked like she was crazy, but she looked sad to me. She was crying,” Guerrero said of Carol, who broke away from cops and then punched and kicked at them when they tackled her.